EPILOGUE
One month later…
The library smelledof ink and leather and something faintly sweet that Ember couldn’t quite identify. Long shafts of afternoon light slanted through tall windows, and the silence was so complete that she could hear the tick of an antique clock somewhere in the depths of the room.
The library had become one of her favorite rooms on the estate, tucked away in the mansion’s east wing behind a door so unassuming she’d almost walked past it. But when she’d opened the door, the space beyond had stolen her breath—floor-to-ceiling shelves packed with physical books, actual paper volumes bound in leather and cloth, their spines cracked from use and age. Datapad storage was efficient, but there was something irreplaceable about holding history in your hands.
Her father had collected all of these books. The thought made her chest ache with the familiar grief, softened now by time and acceptance. Every book was a piece of him she’d never known, awindow into the mind of the man who’d loved her so fiercely that he’d built walls around her life to keep her safe.
She understood that now. She didn’t agree with it, but she understood.
A leather journal lay open on the desk before her, its pages yellowed and brittle, filled with a handwriting she didn’t recognize. She’d been working through the estate’s physical archives for hours, cataloging holdings that had never been digitized, searching for anything that might give her insight into her family’s business history. The electronic records were comprehensive, but they only stretched back thirty years—barely a blink in the span of the Duvain legacy.
The older records told different stories. Land acquisitions. Mining rights. Political alliances formed and broken across generations. Her great-grandfather had been a ruthless businessman, her grandfather a cautious consolidator, and her father a visionary who’d transformed the company into something unprecedented.
And then there was this.
She frowned at the entry before her, reading it for the third time.
Southern communications relay—coordinates attached. Annual supply shipment confirmed. Automated maintenance protocol active. Personnel: classified.
The entry was dated twenty-two years ago. Just before she was born.
She flipped back through the journal, searching for context, but found nothing. The relay wasn’t mentioned before this entry, and it wasn’t mentioned afterwards. A single reference, buried inpages of mundane logistics, as if someone had tried to hide it in plain sight.
She pulled up the estate’s electronic records on her datapad, cross-referencing the coordinates. Nothing. The location existed on standard maps—a remote stretch of jungle far to the south, beyond the inhabited zones—but there was no record of any Duvain holdings in the area. No property deeds, no construction permits, no equipment manifests.
And yet…
She switched to the company’s automated shipping logs, filtering for the coordinates. The system churned for a moment, then returned a single result: a standing order for supply shipments to the location. Twice a year, every year, for the past two decades. The shipments were small—basic provisions, maintenance equipment, power cells—and they were flagged as automated, requiring no human oversight.
Someone had built a communications tower in the most remote region of the south. Someone had arranged for it to be supplied indefinitely. And someone had gone to considerable effort to ensure that no one would ever find out.
Who?she wondered.And why?
The obvious answer was her father. The timeline fit—the construction would have begun around the time of his marriage, the period when he was at the height of his influence. But that raised more questions than it answered. Her father had been many things, but secretive wasn’t one of them. He’d believed in transparency, in building trust through openness.
Why would he hide this?
She closed the journal carefully and sat back in her chair, her mind racing through possibilities. A secret communications relay could serve any number of purposes. An emergency backup in case the main networks failed. A covert monitoring of corporate competitors. A listening post for gathering intelligence.
Or it could be something else entirely.
The clock chimed softly, pulling her from her thoughts. Late afternoon already. Rykan and Baylin had been out in the wilderness all day. They’d be returning soon, hungry and probably covered in mud.
She smiled at the thought. Rykan was completely different at the estate—looser, lighter, closer to the male she’d fallen in love with on the mountain. The city constrained him in ways he never complained about but she could see clearly. Here, surrounded by forest and open sky, he could finally breathe.
The past month had passed in a blur of activity. She divided her time between the estate and Port Cantor, managing the endless demands of running a major corporation while building a new life with the male she loved. There were board meetings and trade negotiations, security assessments and staffing decisions. Most of Marina’s allies had been replaced, and her aunt appeared to have accepted her exile, although Ember made sure that both her physical and digital interaction were monitored.
The backlash from announcing her mating had been less than she anticipated. There were whispers, of course, although those tended to die out as soon as the speakers found themselves the target of Rykan’s predatory gaze. She might have received fewer social invitations, but on the whole she considered that a benefit. No existing business partnerships had been affected and no onehad refused to discuss new business, and that was what really mattered when it came to her company.
But what ultimately made it all worthwhile was the time she spent with her mate—the quiet moments stolen between obligations, the nights wrapped in Rykan’s arms, the mornings that began with coffee and conversation, and the constant satisfaction of having him at her side.
She’d managed to arrange her schedule so that they could spend at least part of each week at the estate. It was challenging at times, but it was worth it to see the smile on his face as soon as they arrived. She enjoyed the more relaxed atmosphere as well. And now she’d uncovered a mystery.
She gathered the journal and her notes, deciding to take them to dinner and discuss her discovery with the others.
Dinner was a warm affair, the four of them gathered around the small table she’d chosen as an alternative to the much larger formal dining table. Tomas had outdone himself—roasted game from the estate’s grounds, vegetables from the greenhouse, and wine from a cellar that apparently held vintages older than her grandmother.
